At a time when appearance impacts everything from personal confidence to professional image, hair transplant surgeries are increasingly seen as more than cosmetic fixes. When Ashutosh Prabhu’s hair started thinning in his late 30s, it hit the administrative executive’s confidence in the boardroom. “I’d notice eyes drifting to my bald head,” he says, “and that punctured my confidence level. ” For 28-year-old Anooj Pradhan, the creeping loss around his temples took a more intimate toll. “I stopped taking selfies. I didn’t feel like myself,” he admits. The two men, a decade apart, were bound by the same quiet grief of the erosion of identity that often accompanies hair loss. What they found, eventually, was a way to regrow more than just hair.

Prabhu, now 50, recalls how his colleagues would perceive him differently because of his balding pate. They’d see his widening crown and retreating hairline and “wouldn’t say anything outright, but their eyes would flicker to my scalp.” As an admin head who always has to communicate with people, image mattered. “I began to wonder if I was being taken less seriously,” he says. “When you look older than you feel, people listen to you differently.”

Ashutosh Prabhu